Final Polls: Bad news for Biden and Greenfield in Iowa
The final gold-standard Selzer poll from Iowa shows Biden trailing Trump in the state by 7 points, and Democratic Senate challenger Theresa Greenfield 4 points behind incumbent Joni Ernst. Per the Des Moines Register:
Republican President Donald Trump has taken over the lead in Iowa as Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden has faded, a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows just days before Election Day. The president now leads by 7 percentage points over Biden, 48% to 41%. Three percent say they will vote for someone else, 2% aren’t sure and 5% don’t want to say for whom they will vote. In September’s Iowa Poll, the candidates were tied at 47% to 47%. …
J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., said while men are more likely to support Trump and women to support Biden, the gender gap has narrowed, and independents have returned to supporting the president, a group he won in 2016.
“The president is holding demographic groups that he won in Iowa four years ago, and that would give someone a certain level of comfort with their standing,” she said. “There’s a consistent story in 2020 to what happened in 2016.” But, she said, “Neither candidate hits 50%, so there’s still some play here.”
Trump won Iowa and its six electoral votes by 9.4 points in 2016, but other recent polls have shown a much tighter race this year. As a result of the final Selzer poll — showing highest lead the president has had in that poll since March, and with only 4 percent voters still persuadable — Trump is now slightly favored to win the state in FiveThirtyEight’s model, while the Senate race is still a toss-up.
As New York Times pollster Nate Cohn quickly noted on Twitter, Trump’s lead over Biden is the “same margin as [the final Selzer] poll four years ago, which wound up foreshadowing Trump’s Midwestern sweep.” Inside Elections analyst Ryan Matsumoto, however, noted that the poll also indicated some rosier national news Biden:
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Why Iowa matters so much in the presidential election
IT IS SMALL and almost 1,000 miles from the White House. But for decades, Iowa has played an outsized role in America’s presidential primaries. Barack Obama said that winning Iowa during the 2008 primary season was the best night of his political career. The state—known for its cornfields and brutally cold winters—can serve either as a campaign’s launchpad or as its crash site.
Because the state is significantly older, whiter and more rural than average, some object to its influence. Yet Iowa matters because its primary—the election when Democrats and Republicans select their presidential candidates—comes first in the election cycle. Candidates who fare well in Iowa gain momentum that can propel their campaigns forward. (Every Democratic primary candidate who has won Iowa since 2000 has gone on to become the party’s nominee for president.) Candidates who fare poorly may find themselves starved of media attention, donations and volunteers.
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